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Friday, December 7, 2012

Being Real

Are you Real in your relationships?

We could take that question a lot of
different directions, and we're meant to. It's one of those queries
that we can ask every once and a while, and the answer will be always
shift. On our yoga mats, what's the immediate relationship there?
Yep, with ourselves. It does not matter how many other people are in
the room, the moment we roll out our mats and step onto them, the
moment we start listening for our breath, it's about our bodies and
our breath, baby. We are Living, and whether it's “good,” “bad,”
pretty, or ugly, this is the real thing. Some poses feel great, some
poses we want to run away from the moment we hear the cue, and that's
just a symbol for our daily life. Being Real isn't about being an
optimist or a pessimist.

This is about making space for all of
what we experience, and celebrating how beautiful it is.

If we don't cut our own bullshit and be honest with ourselves, what
will our other relationships look like?

Now I am not advocating that we all go
around being unnecessary drama llamas (people who throw their drama
on others in the way a llama randomly spits). That's part of being
Real, too. Maybe we need to look at not what our actions or reactions
are, but where they come from, what they're fueled by. If you come
out of a pose in a yoga class, are you taking care of yourself, or
stopping just before the breakthrough? In my relationships, in my
yoga practice, in my daily life, I've used my own drama to hide
behind the truth: I. Am. Terrified.

And that's okay.

Because we all are. Are you new to your
yoga practice? Are you new to your life practice? You know what I'm
talking about. You are exactly where you need to be.

When you talk to yourself (we all do
it), your family, your friends, strangers, are you speaking from the
heart? Are you aware of your boundaries (some things don't need to be
shared with everyone), and can you respect the boundaries of others?
This is a practice in mindfulness and vulnerability, and we're not
gonna get it perfect every time. But I know deep in my gut that my
most profound moments of connection are when I foster the
relationships in my life that feed my soul. What feeds my soul? The
reassurance that I do not have to ignore or cover up who I am, what I
feel, and what I have to offer to this world.

This video is a part of a creative project started by a man known as Ze Frank. He asked the people who watch his videos to record themselves singing a song about themselves. They weren't worried about melody, rhyming, they were just making it up as they went. The more we bare our soul, the more we find our joys and struggles aren't so different from everyone else's. You are not alone.

1 comment:

What is Twisting Open, Sinking In?

Often in yoga we are told that what we practice on the mat translates to our everyday life. Yet there are so many sensations and ideas that come up (and sometimes hit us on the head with a two-by-four), that we may not get the chance to really reflect and talk about how these experiences and changes manifest themselves in our lives. Just as we deepen our twists to open our hearts and sink deeper into the pose, Twisting Open, Sinking In aims to explore the experiences of the important practice we call Everyday Life.